One thing I learned about this week: The Social Gospel Movement

The Social Gospel movement happened during the progressive era between the 1890s and the 1910s. The Social Gospel Movement took place in Canada and the United States and it tried to apply Christian ethics to social problems. The Social Gospelers thought that the second coming of Jesus would not happen unless humankind relieved itself from social evil. They thought that human effort could fix those evils.

The social Gospel Movement also had a big effect upon the American Federation of Labor. Under the influence of the social Gospel Movement, the AFL started a movement called Labor forward. The Labor Forward movement was pro-Christian and “preached unionization like revival” in Philadelphia.